Saturday, 10 January 2015

An impassioned e-mail from Dick saw the largest turnout of the TNC for many a year and sharing a lift from Lancaster and meeting up at Devil's bridge did indeed give a flash back to the good old times.

The road up to Bull Pot Farm was a little wetter than usual and our plan of reacquainting ourselves with the bottom of the Aquarius series put on a back burner.

The path from the farm too was more like a stream than a path and the breeze blowing over the more made the light rain more wetting than usual.

Huge thanks to those that have put in the effort in creating the new Lancaster entrance, very nicely done.

The nice thing about a leisurely trip is that you have time to look round a corner and over an edge. Fall pot really is worth a few minutes to take in properly and we discovered what, from the trench on the floor must be a real trade route, along the right hand wall of the pot with it's associated bolts, but somewhere we'd never been before.

With only a loose plan now of going to have a look at the Colonnades, we once again took our time getting back to Kath's way and so had a bit of a ratch around the Crater too.

Up in the Colonnades we admired the work that has been put in cleaning up this area and had a bit of a look down the dig at the end, where a very talented mud sculptor had been at work.

The return up the pitch was really quite damp at the bottom and we huddled on the ledge waiting for everyone to be up the main pitch before once again making our way onto the moor. Fortunately the breeze was blowing from behind us for most of the way back.

The fog had become thicker and the puddles deeper as we made our way to the Barbon Inn where a very warm welcome awaited us. Unfortunately we felt it wasn't the done thing to squeeze three of us onto a single chair next to a couple of couples enjoying the fire, so we had to establish ourselves in the dining room. The beer matched the atmosphere and was top quality.